The complaint (read below), filed with the San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints, comes in the context of a years-long battle by civil rights groups representing Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian communities to enshrine San Francisco Police Department policy into law when it came to city cops working with the FBI.

The groups won that battle in 2012 with the passage of the Safe San Francisco Civil Rights Ordinance. The ordinance allows SFPD officers to participate in FBI counterterrorism investigations “only in a manner that is fully consistent with the laws of the State of California, including but not limited to the inalienable right to privacy guaranteed by Article 1, Section 1 of the California Constitution, as well as the laws and policies of the City and County of San Francisco and, as applicable to the Police Department, that Department’s policies, procedures, and orders.”

In the incident detailed in the complaint, the San Francisco branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Asian Law Caucus allege that an SFPD inspector not only violated the law, but that the department failed to report it.

The complaint alleges that SFPD Sgt. Inspector Gavin McEachern violated the ordinance and a handful of department policies when he and an unidentified FBI agent approached software engineer Sarmad Gilani in June 2014, at Google offices in San Francisco.

“My client and I had filed a Freedom of Information Act request regarding some travel issues he was having,” said Brice Hamack, an attorney and CAIR’s Northern California civil rights coordinator.

Hamack said that a few weeks later, Gilani got an unexpected visit at work.

“They asked him questions almost solely related to his First Amendment protected activity,” Hamack said, “such as his recent travel, his political opinions on recent international events, and based on some writings he saw in one of the officers’ notebooks, they were also interested in his blogging and his political opinions online as well. None of the questions asked had anything to do with any actual criminal investigation whatsoever.”

The San Francisco Police Department declined to answer questions related to the complaint, and a spokesman directed inquiries to the FBI. Federal agents did not respond to requests for comment.

But SFPD Lt. Daryl Fong, who oversees the department’s participation in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, addressed San Francisco’s Police Commission last month to give an annual report.

“SFPD members assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force do not engage in interviews regarding solely constitutionally protected activities,” Fong said on Feb. 4, “which would be a violation of department general orders.”

Hamack said the filing will be the first real test of the city’s 3-year-old policy, which also mandates the annual reporting and a paper trail requesting permission for the kind of investigation Sgt. McEachern is alleged to have joined.

“When the ordinance was passed and enacted, one of the mechanisms to keep the department in check was these annual reports where the department was supposed to be transparent about what they were doing,” Hamack said. “When they released their report, there was no mention of this incident whatsoever.”

Opening arguments portrayed Ellen Pao as a victim of retaliation while a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, when she broke off an affair with a married colleague. But the firm’s attorneys said Pao didn’t have the skills necessary for the job.

Exelrod said his client, 45-year-old Ellen Pao, had received erotic poetry and sketches of nude women from a senior partner at the firm, and another male employee had interfered with her work when Pao broke off an affair with him.

“Kleiner Perkins used Ellen Pao’s many talents for six years, but when it came time to pick who would be the next generation of investing leaders at Kleiner Perkins, Kleiner only picked men,” the attorney told jurors.

The firm has denied wrongdoing and says Pao was a poor performer who didn’t get along with her colleagues.

“Ellen Pao did not succeed at Kleiner Perkins as an investing professional because she did not have the necessary skills for that job,” said KPCB’s attorney, Lynne Hermle. “She did not come close.”

In addition, Hermle said in her opening statement that the company has been a leader in recruiting and supporting women in technology.

Pao is seeking $16 million in damages. The firm is seeking to limit any possible damages by arguing that Pao is well compensated in her current position as interim CEO of the popular social media company Reddit and hasn’t suffered financially since leaving Kleiner after filing her lawsuit.

Venture Capital’s Reputation

Venture capital firms provide much of the startup funds for tech companies and have a reputation of being even more insular and male-dominated than the companies they help launch. Kleiner Perkins helped build companies like Amazon, Netscape, Genentech and Google.

“In general, it’s a culture that has not been welcome to women,” said Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who teaches gender equity law.

A study released last year by Babson College in Massachusetts found that women filled just 6 percent of the partner-level positions at 139 venture capital firms in 2013, down from 10 percent in 1999. Kleiner Perkins does have more female partners than many of its competitors, almost 20 percent.

Even if Pao loses, Rhode thinks that the case puts venture capital firms “on notice that they’re going to be held accountable.”

It’s rare for a Silicon Valley discrimination case to make it to trial, though, giving the public a glimpse into venture capital culture.

“We’ll get to make our own decisions about whether a man would have been treated in the same way she was treated in some of these contexts,” Rhode said.

‘We’ll get to make our own decisions about whether a man would have been treated in the same way she was treated in some of these contexts.’Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode

Kleiner fired Pao in 2012 — six months after she filed her lawsuit. She had been hired in 2005 to serve as chief of staff for senior partner John Doerr, who helped direct early investments in Google and Amazon.

Pao left the administrative position with Doerr in 2010 to become a junior partner with full-time investment duties.

Exelrod said she was excluded from a dinner at the home of former Vice President Al Gore — a partner at the firm — after another Kleiner partner told her “women killed the buzz,” and also was subjected to a conversation about pornography that a senior Kleiner partner did not stop, the lawyer said.

Hermle, however, said Pao “repeatedly and consistently seeks to twist facts, circumstances and events.”

The trial, in front of a jury of five men and seven women, could last four weeks.

Pao Changes Reddit Culture

Pao became interim CEO of Reddit in November. The company announced a new privacy policy on Tuesday under which it will remove photos, videos and links with explicit content if the person in the image hasn’t given permission for it to be posted.

It’s a big shift from the online venue’s hands-off approach to privacy, under which its 160 million users have largely policed their own forums within certain guidelines, such as no child pornography or spam.

The change came about six months after hackers obtained nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities and posted them to social media sites, including Reddit.

Read the lawsuit

Sudhin Thanawala and Michael Liedtke of the Associated Press contributed to this report.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/24/trial-begins-in-silicon-valley-gender-discrimination-suit/feed2Screen Shot 2015-02-24 at 6.22.04 PMA Sneak Peek at Apple’s New Cupertino Headquartershttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/11/a-sneak-peek-at-apples-new-cupertino-headquarters
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/11/a-sneak-peek-at-apples-new-cupertino-headquarters#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 01:28:02 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10430660Apple’s new Cupertino headquarters, known as Campus 2, has been largely off-limits to press since construction began last year.

Referred to as the “spaceship” for its flying saucer-like design, the new headquarters will be a round, four-story structure — big enough to house roughly 15,000 employees. Offices, research and development space, dining facilities and a large theater are among the building’s features.

The company is bringing in thousands of mature trees to create a wooded, parkland setting, though much of that property will be off-limits to the public.

The site is being heralded for its environmentally-conscious design and construction methods, which include plans to use recycled water to flush toilets, and solar arrays to meet much of the campus’s energy needs.

“What Apple inherited on the property was several older buildings, all of which were broken down and deconstructed,” says KQED Science reporter Amy Standen, who got a tour of the site. “Much of the material from those old buildings was recycled into new building material to make the new campus, according to Apple.”

Apple says 95% of the waste from the buildings that were demolished will be reused. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

Critics of the project say the building’s design is too insular, and not well integrated into the community.

“Once the campus is open, Apple employees will have relatively little reason to leave the building,” says Standen. “And some say, ‘Why not put this in the middle of San Jose? ‘”

A more urban setting could be better connected to public transit and create opportunities for locals to interact with the company, say critics.

Apple says Cupertino is the company’s home — and they are building the building that fosters innovation.

When the building opens in 2016, nearby neighbors are hopeful they might get a tour at an open house. At the very least, Campus 2 will have a visitor’s center and parking lot.

KQED Science will have more photos and details from the tour when our radio feature airs on Feb. 23.

The main office will be a large circular building and is being constructed with concrete pieces. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

The large office space will surround a park. Employees will be able to park their cars underneath the campus or in the parking lots being constructed with solar panels on top. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

Adjacent to the circular office space, Apple is constructing an amphitheater. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

Apple’s current campus is only a few blocks away from the new campus. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

Apple has a room-size model of the new campus in a building on site of the construction zone. (Anya Schultz/KQED)

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/11/a-sneak-peek-at-apples-new-cupertino-headquarters/feed5RS14234_apple5-qutThe construction zone has on site equipment for waste and recycling. (Anya Schultz/KQED)RS14230_apple1-scrThe main office will be a large circular building and is being constructed with concrete pieces. (Anya Schultz/KQED)RS14231_apple2-scrThe large office space will surround a park. Employees will be able to park their cars underneath the campus or in the parking lots being constructed with solar panels on top. (Anya Schultz/KQED)RS14235_apple6-scrAdjacent to the circular office space, Apple is constructing an amphitheater. (Anya Schultz/KQED)RS14233_apple4-scrApple's current campus is only a few blocks away from the new campus. (Anya Schultz/KQED)RS14236_apple9-scrApple has a room-size model of the new campus in a building on site of the construction zone. (Anya Schultz/KQED)Legislators Draft Bills to Curb Use of Psych Meds on Foster Kidshttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/03/legislators-draft-bills-to-curb-use-of-psych-meds-on-foster-kids/
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/02/03/legislators-draft-bills-to-curb-use-of-psych-meds-on-foster-kids/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 23:17:42 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10423562Almost one in four teenagers living in foster care in California is prescribed some type of psychotropic medication, found an investigation by the San Jose Mercury News. And of those teens, 60 percent are being prescribed anti-psychotics.

Now several lawmakers are gearing up to introduce legislation aimed at curbing the use of psychiatric drugs in the foster care system.

Many of these drugs are untested and not officially approved for children by the Food and Drug Administration. They can range from the medications used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) to more powerful drugs designed for severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — both of which are very rare in children.

“The concern is a lot of the prescribing is for the caregivers’ convenience rather than what’s best for the child,” says Karen de Sá, an investigative reporter with the San Jose Mercury News. “The problem with the drugs is, while they’re very sedating, they have significant side effects as serious as obesity and diabetes, and uncontrollable tremors.”

The reliance on these drugs is also quite costly for the state. Psych meds accounted for 72 percent of the Medi-Cal spending on foster children over the past 10 years, according to the paper’s analysis.

Lawmakers have until late February to introduce bills related to this issue. Advocates looking to cut down on the use of these drugs are finding the bills’ early language promising:

Ensure that kids, caregivers, attorneys and judges are informed about medications and their side effects

Grant kids the right to alternative treatments that do not involve powerful drugs, as well as the right to a second medical opinion when potentially dangerous combinations of drugs or high dosages are prescribed

Ensure children on medications receive baseline monitoring so that side effects can be caught early

Identify group homes where children are being overmedicated

Empower public health nurses to ensure psych meds are used appropriately

“One of the central things is to get more information to juvenile court judges who authorize these medications,” said de Sá.

The bills will likely face a fight. Some medical professionals and associations representing foster group homes are worried that new regulations could make it harder for kids who need the drugs to get them.

When the state issued a call for restrictions on the prescribing of anti-psychotic medications for youth on Medi-Cal last fall, some clinicians pushed back. From the San Jose Mercury News:

In a November letter to health care director Toby Douglas, the California Alliance of Child and Family Services representing group homes, the California Pharmacists Association and the California Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, among others, called the new policy “alarming” and stated it has resulted in “medically necessary medications” being delayed or denied.

“Even if, as recent media accounts report, there is an issue of overprescribing of antipsychotics to youth, the DHCS solution uses a shotgun approach to address a problem that needs surgical precision,” the letter states.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/12/01/fda-considers-lifting-ban-on-gay-men-donating-blood/feed0Oakland Police Prepare for Protests as Ferguson Grand Jury Decision Loomshttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/11/19/oakland-police-prepare-for-protests-as-ferguson-grand-jury-decision-looms
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/11/19/oakland-police-prepare-for-protests-as-ferguson-grand-jury-decision-looms#commentsThu, 20 Nov 2014 02:23:42 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10349660A grand jury is reported to be close to deciding whether to indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.

Police in Oakland, who have dealt with tensions from their own officer-involved shootings of unarmed black men in the past, say they are ready to “facilitate” any local protest that may arise.

Attorney Jim Chanin represented Scott Olsen, who suffered major injuries from police during an Occupy Oakland demonstration in October 2011. He says these next protests, if they happen, will put OPD’s new crowd control policy to the test.

“A test of whether we’re moving forward, and a test of whether, you know, we see continued improvement in the community relations between Oakland and the people they police,” said Chanin.

Shooting a bean bag, like the one that caused Olsen’s brain damage, is prohibited under the rules. Police can still use “less than lethal” crowd control measures, but need to stay within strict guidelines.

“I think that there will be a possibility of use of less than lethal,” Chanin says. “You can use less than lethal, but it has to be used if the person is either a direct threat to someone’s life, or is about to cause great bodily injury, or is about to cause severe and great property damage, like throwing a bomb or something like that. That’s part one. And part two is that you can’t use it in a way that endangers other members of the crowd that are not deserving to be shot.”

Quan’s Letter to Residents

Mayor Jean Quan says she is committed to “facilitating peaceful expressions and demonstrations” in Oakland.

“We are providing this information to raise awareness about these events, not to alarm, and so that you may plan ahead,” she wrote in a letter to residents.

‘You can have constitutional law enforcement and still have a lowering of crime and effective policing.’Jim Chanin,
attorney for Scott Olsen

The Oakland Police Department has not had an officer-involved shooting in the last 17 months, according to Quan.

“We also have a tremendous decline in the number of complaints. The crime rate is down as well, which just goes to show that you can have constitutional law enforcement and still have a lowering of crime and effective policing,” Chanin said.

There is no specific date for an announcement on whether Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson will face charges for his deadly shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed. The St. Louis County prosecutor has said he expects the grand jury to reach a decision in mid-to-late November.

Protesters Prepare for Decision

Oakland city officials are preparing for protesters to converge on Frank Ogawa Plaza. ABC7 also reports on planned demonstrations.

“We are saying when the decision comes down regardless of what the decision is people should be out in the streets,” D’Andre Teeter of Stop Mass Incarceration Network said. “There should be no business as usual in the country.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network has plans in place for vigils and protests in at least two dozen cities no matter what decision is announced, he said. Demonstrators will gather outside U.S. government buildings to demand federal prosecutors take over the case.

“We are prepared to continue to mobilize. We are calling for everyone to act in a strategic, disciplined, nonviolent way, but do not allow either decision to feel like the case is over.”

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a separate investigation, and it has not said when its work will be completed. It’s looking into potential civil rights violations in Wilson’s actions and the police department’s overall practices, including whether officers used excessive force and engaged in discriminatory practices.

Pull up to the corner of Seventh and Campbell streets in West Oakland and you’ll find a vacant lot, overgrown with weeds and strewn with trash, broken glass, empty spray-paint cans, a tire. Graffiti covers the fences and walls that border the lot, and every few minutes, a BART train rumbles overhead.

But Elaine Brown sees something else, including an urban farm and a high-rise housing development employing the formerly incarcerated.

Brown, head of the nonprofit organization Oakland & The World Enterprises, and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson have entered into a license agreement with the city of Oakland to develop the lot into an urban farm, owned and operated by by the former inmates. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan helped them acquire the vacant lot. To realize their full vision for its development, they still need millions of dollars.

‘It is creating a model so that people can say: Maybe I should hire these people.’

But first, they’re going to clean up the lot and start on the farm, which will be owned and operated by former prisoners and other people who have trouble finding jobs. The group is still raising the funds to build affordable housing on the lot, but Brown is optimistic.

“We’re giving ourselves a year, the building will cost, you know, it will cost a lot of money. But we believe we can find the commitment,” Brown said.

Quan says that the group will be eligible to apply for affordable housing funds and possibly cap-and-trade funding.

This isn’t the first time that Brown, 71, has led young people and former inmates toward self-sufficiency. She led the Black Panther Party from 1974 to 1977.

She says that many current training and re-entry programs don’t work because so few people will hire the formerly incarcerated.

“This is not a panacea, we know that, it isn’t even approaching one. But it is creating a model so that people can say: Maybe I should hire these people,” she said. “People are going to come out and have nothing to do. Some people are getting ready to go in because they have nothing to do and have no money, and they will try to hit somebody in the head for $20. And if you get $200 coming out of the joint and you hit the street running and you don’t have any family, you’re going to do desperate things to keep alive. So, it’s in the interest of all of us, it makes sense, to create opportunity.”

Project board member Jerry Elster, a program coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, says he faced housing and employment barriers after serving nearly 26 years for a gang-related murder. He’s been waiting for a project like this.

“The possibility of actually becoming a vested interest in your community, to own property, to be a taxpayer citizen and to have those same doors that was closed to you opened up—people are excited,” Elster says.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/29/an-activists-plan-for-developing-lives-as-well-as-property-in-oakland/feed0New Oakland Mayoral Poll: Kaplan Leads, Schaaf 2nd, Quan 3rdhttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/17/new-poll-kaplan-leads-oajkland-mayor%27s-race
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/17/new-poll-kaplan-leads-oajkland-mayor%27s-race#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 15:00:22 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10344105Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan continues to hold the lead in the race for Oakland mayor, and fellow Councilwoman Libby Schaaf has moved into second place, according to the latest poll from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

That same poll released Wednesday, puts incumbent Mayor Jean Quan in third place despite respondents saying the city’s on the right track.

“People realize that it’s more peaceful and they think this city’s doing well, they just don’t associate it with me, unfortunately,” Quan said at a policy roundtable Wednesday night. “If you blame me for everything that’s gone wrong in the last 10 years, you have to give me some credit for the things that are going very right.”

Fourteen candidates are vying to unseat Quan, including Port Commissioner Bryan Parker, City Auditor Courtney Ruby, attorney (and former Quan ally) Dan Siegel and San Francisco State Professor Joe Tuman. Oakland voters will use ranked-choice voting to elect the mayor, as well as the auditor, council members and school board members. But confusion or even suspicion of the system remains. KQED’s Mina Kim spoke with reporter Cy Musiker, who is covering the Oakland mayoral race.

Mina Kim: So how have ranked choice elections played out since the system first took effect in San Francisco in 2004?

Cy Musiker: There’s been 84 elections in the Bay Area since the system first took effect. And here’s a surprising stat: Corey Cook of the University of San Francisco found that in almost two-thirds of those elections, one candidate got more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes without any fussing with second- and third-place votes; in other words, without any instant runoff needed. And when election officials had to tabulate the second and third choices, most of the time, the candidate in first place at the start increased his or her lead in each round of counting.

According to Cook, a candidate has surged from behind in just five ranked-choice elections. So that all suggests that the results in ranked-choice voting aren’t usually very controversial at all, and the outcomes aren’t radically different from an election in which voters mark just one candidate on their ballots.

Kim: In Oakland in 2010, Jean Quan won the mayoral race by coming from behind.

Musiker: Quan was very smart about ranked choice voting, building alliances with other candidates against the frontrunner that year, former state Senator Don Perata. That reveals one of the few real problems with ranked choice — whether a candidate’s victory is viewed as legitimate when he or she comes from behind to win. One suggested improvement is continuing the count until all votes are exhausted, as opposed to stopping after one candidate hits 50 percent plus one.

Kim: How is ranked choice affecting the candidates’ campaigns this year?

Musiker: One of the selling points for ranked choice is that it reduces highly partisan, negative campaigns. That seems to be true. Councilwoman Libby Schaaf’s campaign manager, Peggy Moore, said ranked choice means every rival is “a friend.” If she’s going door to door in a neighborhood and sees a rival’s lawn sign in front of someone’s home, Moore says there’s still an opportunity to knock on that door and ask residents to consider her candidate for vote two or three.

KQED’s Adam Grossberg contributed to this report.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/17/new-poll-kaplan-leads-oajkland-mayor%27s-race/feed2Art Behind Bars: On Alcatraz, Ai Weiwei Celebrates the Silencedhttp://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/09/27/art-behind-bars-on-alcatraz-ai-weiwei-celebrates-the-silenced/
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/09/29/art-behind-bars-on-alcatraz-ai-weiwei-celebrates-the-silenced#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 15:00:10 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/?p=148877Artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s exhibition on Alcatraz Island opens to the public Saturday. The Chinese dissident has been a relentless critic of his own government, especially after shoddy construction of schools killed thousands of children in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Because Chinese authorities confiscated his passport after imprisoning Read More …

Listen to Mina Kim’s KQED News report on the installation.

A detail from “Trace” shows a portrait of Edward Snowden, the former N.S.A contractor who stole secret documents relating to U.S. government spying. Snowden now lives as an exile in Russia; Photo by Read More …Source: Arts News

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/09/19/first-look-ai-weiwei-on-alcatraz/feed0Exhibition features everything from Legos to teapots to exploring themes of freedom and confinement.Exhibition features everything from Legos to teapots to exploring themes of freedom and confinement.KQED NewsnoUCSF’s First Undocumented Medical Student Begins Traininghttp://blogs.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2014/09/08/ucsfs-first-undocumented-medical-student-begins-training/
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/09/09/ucsfs-first-undocumented-medical-student-begins-training#commentsTue, 09 Sep 2014 15:30:23 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/?p=147171

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/09/09/ucsfs-first-undocumented-medical-student-begins-training/feed0Wine Grape Harvest Comes Early to the North Bayhttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/08/22/winegrape-harvest-napa-valley-sonoma/
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/08/22/winegrape-harvest-napa-valley-sonoma/#commentsFri, 22 Aug 2014 22:32:44 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/?p=145496Crews fan out just after daybreak at Trefethen Family Vineyards to pick clusters of pinot noir grapes for sparkling wines. They’re getting a late start.

“Imagine, we typically do this at 2 in the morning,” says Jon Ruel, head of the winery and former president of Napa Valley Grapegrowers. “But today is not a big day for us. We’re doing only 36 tons.”

While the 6:30 a.m. start time is later than usual, harvest season has come early to Napa Valley and other parts of the North Bay. Spring rains and a warm summer have brought the earliest start to harvest in more than a decade for many vineyards.

“The timing [of the rain] was fantastic,” Ruel says. “When the vines were just waking up from dormancy and were able to use that water.”

Napa’s stable groundwater supply also helped lessen the toll the drought could have taken on grape production. Growers are optimistic about this year’s quality and yields, but worry about another dry winter.

“We can handle a year or two of drought, we have that much water underground,” Ruel says. “We can’t handle year after year of no rainfall, that would be serious.”

Bill Niman’s BN Ranch was left with about 100,000 pounds of unsellable meat after the recall earlier this year, despite producing documents showing that its products had received proper inspections at Petaluma’s Rancho Feeding Corp.

A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Monday accuses Rancho Feeding’s owners and workers of circumventing U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections and slaughtering and selling cattle that had been condemned or had shown signs of eye cancer.

Niman had stored his impounded meat, worth an estimated $400,000, hoping that ongoing federal investigations would turn up information favorable to his case and eventually allow him to sell it.

He was allowed to distribute some of the meat to family and friends. But he says he sent about 60,000 pounds to a rendering plant for disposal earlier this month.

“We couldn’t continue to pay the thousands of dollars per month for storage, so we had to let it go, sadly,” Niman says.

And there’s more bad news for Niman and other beef producers caught up in the 9 million-pound Rancho recall. The USDA says ranchers who lost products because of the recall won’t get federal financial help because there’s no formal program to provide such assistance.

“I’m a little surprised,” Niman says. “There has been some historical precedent for USDA helping people out when they have been basically innocent victims of USDA actions.”

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/08/18/bill-niman-ranch-rancho-feeding-recall/feed8Bill Niman-Rancho FeedingBill Niman has given up fight to save meat recalled even though it wasn't involved in alleged slaughterhouse scam. (Photo by Mina/Kim)California Releasing Some Nonviolent Inmates Earlyhttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/20140430-california-releasing-nonviolent-inmates-early
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/20140430-california-releasing-nonviolent-inmates-early#commentsThu, 01 May 2014 14:00:55 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/?p=134745Inmates at Chino State Prison. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

By Mina Kim and Don Clyde

California has begun releasing some nonviolent prisoners early in order to meet a court order to ease overcrowding in the state’s prison population.

Back in February, a panel of federal judges agreed to give Gov. Jerry Brown two more years to meet the court’s inmate population targets. The state remains more than 5,000 inmates over that target.

The Brown administration has estimated that about 1,400 inmates would be released early over the federally granted two-year period.

L.A. Times reporter Paige St. John spoke with KQED’s Mina Kim about the releases (listen to the interview below). St. John said the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not told her how many inmates have been released so far.

“The Corrections Department has been refusing for a week to comment on this matter, and in fact, probation departments themselves were unaware they were already receiving these released prisoners until we contacted them and had them go through the intake forms of people arriving at the door,” St. John said.

But the Corrections Department has to give an update to federal judges by May 15 on what it’s doing, and St. John said it’s likely to count those numbers in its next report. St. John also said concerns over public safety and recidivism of these early inmate releases are probably overblown.

“This particular population is not expected to have a dramatic or even measurable increase on public safety or crime rates, largely because these are individuals who would be released anyway,” St. John said. “They’re just being released sooner. And experts who had been working for the prisoners in the class-action litigation over California’s prison conditions have submitted their own reports finding that there would be no impact on public safety, and in fact, might improve things by allowing people to have a goal of working toward early release by allowing them to earn good-behavior credits, encouraging them to participate in things that will give them a better chance of staying out of trouble when they’re on the street.”